Hacking [Question] Switching to A9LH (O3DS/N3DS)

[jonnytron]

Hi guys,
I was wondering if I could find advice on switching my ds's over to A9LH
I have (as in my sig);

N3DS XL (E) - sysNAND 9.2.0-20E [emuNAND ReiNAND_10.6.0-31E]
O3DS XL (E) - sysNAND 9.2.0-20E [emuNAND RxTools_10.3.0-28E]

Im looking to try it out on my old 3ds before my new one (the important one).
Possible complications i can think of are that im not entirely sure of what modifications ive made to twl or agb whitelists. Or any additional issues I could have not starting from stock.

Im aware of Plialects guide but was wondering where/ how i might get going with it on two machines that have already been messed around with quite alot... and maintain my current emuNAND with its working NNID (I imagine with a simple backup).

Thanks guys​

 

[Omegapsy]

You should not have any problems moving over to A9LH on either system if you follow the guides to a T. I woujld reccomend making backups of all four nands (Emu and sys on both) and Wiping them all out to start from a fresh window. Once the process is done, just restore your emunand(s) and use an A9LH compatible CFW to boot into it. I moved from rxTools to AuReiNand with no data loss and kept my NNID.

 

[LiquidAudacity]

As long as you take your time and back everything up you will be fine

 

[FenrirWolf]

Just start on stage 4 of Plailect's guide. Though you might need to do a bit of stage 3 to set up Cakes beforehand.

 

[jonnytron]

Righto, thats about what i expected.
Whats the chance of a hard brick with the current tutorial (on O3DS and N3DS independently) ? providing i understand the process and follow it to the letter.
... as I dont have a hardmod.

Thanks for your help, ill get cracking on that soon.

 

[jonnytron]

Right, my O3DS is now done and running on A9LH with a 10.7 sysNAND without any trouble.
Now onto my N3DS (which im more nervous about and presents more confusion)

Can someone please address each of these to settle my doubts on the plialect guide;
1. Modifications to patch TWL_FIRM (the guide says this needs 'fixing' before following the guide, will formatting fix this?)
2. I want to hold onto my current emuNAND (this isn't much of an issue, i imagine i just flash it back at the end of the process)
3. I want to have a 9.2 and the above 10.7 system running as emu/sysNAND (but the guide scraps emuNAND and im not sure which i should have as sys and which as emu??)
4. Should i choose to have my used 10.7 system stay as emuNAND, can i have A9LH boot into emuNAND rather than sysNAND?
Edit 5. And what seems to be newly implemented use of RedNAND for getting OTP.bin... will I be able to reintroduce emuNAND as easily over redNAND???

Someone please tell me how I could approach each of these.



I would currently plan to;
- backup my 10.7 emuNAND and /nintendo3ds folder for it to my computer
- format my 9.2 sysNAND and re-set-up emuNAND at 9.2 (having double checked it was a full downgrade back in the day)
- downgrade emuNAND to obtain OTP.bin etc...

 

[Bu2d85]

1. The patched TWL_FIRM has caused the downgrade from 9.2 to 2.1 to fail but not always. Not sure if a format will "fix" it but you can probably find a "clean" one somewhere.
2. Keep a backup of your emunand to reinject at the end, or do the entire process on a different sd card.
3. I use AuReiNand with a 9.2 sysnand for menuhax and GW. The emunand is updated to 10.7. I like the safety net of a 9.2 sysnand.
4. AuReiNand will boot emunand by default. This can be changed in the settings.

I hope this helps.

 

[The Real Jdbye]

Right, my O3DS is now done and running on A9LH with a 10.7 sysNAND without any trouble.
Now onto my N3DS (which im more nervous about and presents more confusion)

Can someone please address each of these to settle my doubts on the plialect guide;
1. Modifications to patch TWL_FIRM (the guide says this needs 'fixing' before following the guide, will formatting fix this?)
2. I want to hold onto my current emuNAND (this isn't much of an issue, i imagine i just flash it back at the end of the process)
3. I want to have a 9.2 and the above 10.7 system running as emu/sysNAND (but the guide scraps emuNAND and im not sure which i should have as sys and which as emu??)
4. Should i choose to have my used 10.7 system stay as emuNAND, can i have A9LH boot into emuNAND rather than sysNAND?
Edit 5. And what seems to be newly implemented use of RedNAND for getting OTP.bin... will I be able to reintroduce emuNAND as easily over redNAND???

Someone please tell me how I could approach each of these.



I would currently plan to;
- backup my 10.7 emuNAND and /nintendo3ds folder for it to my computer
- format my 9.2 sysNAND and re-set-up emuNAND at 9.2 (having double checked it was a full downgrade back in the day)
- downgrade emuNAND to obtain OTP.bin etc...

1. No, you have to reinstall the original TWL_FIRM CIA.
2. Indeed.
3. You can skip the parts at the end where it tells you to copy emuNAND to sysNAND and enable updatedsysnand mode, and it should boot emuNAND by default. I recommend doing this, since emuNAND is safer.
4. See #3
5. When I followed the guide a couple days ago, the instructions said to use emuNAND, not redNAND. In the end it shouldn't matter which one you use, as long as all the homebrew that accesses it has RedNAND support. EmuNAND has better compatibility in general.

 

[jonnytron]

1. The patched TWL_FIRM has caused the downgrade from 9.2 to 2.1 to fail but not always. Not sure if a format will "fix" it but you can probably find a "clean" one somewhere.
2. Keep a backup of your emunand to reinject at the end, or do the entire process on a different sd card.
3. I use AuReiNand with a 9.2 sysnand for menuhax and GW. The emunand is updated to 10.7. I like the safety net of a 9.2 sysnand.
4. AuReiNand will boot emunand by default. This can be changed in the settings.

I hope this helps.

Yeah that all sounds good, i guess ill look for a clean TWL_FIRM somewhere.
On 3+4 with your system does the boot process then go A9LH > sysNAND MenuHAX > AuReiNAND > emuNAND
or A9LH > AuReiNAND > emuNAND??? Id personally prefer the latter but mainly just interested.

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------

1. No, you have to reinstall the original TWL_FIRM CIA.
2. Indeed.
3. You can skip the parts at the end where it tells you to copy emuNAND to sysNAND and enable updatedsysnand mode, and it should boot emuNAND by default. I recommend doing this, since emuNAND is safer.
4. See #3
5. When I followed the guide a couple days ago, the instructions said to use emuNAND, not redNAND. In the end it shouldn't matter which one you use, as long as all the homebrew that accesses it has RedNAND support. EmuNAND has better compatibility in general.

Thanks a lot, i think that about covers everything.
Ill just have to;
1. Find and install an original TWL_FIRM CIA
2. Figure out RedNAND... dunno why it changed really. My only concerns for returning my emuNAND over it is how emu/RedNAND are stored differently so I worry it wont write over the redNAND properly... I enjoy that the efforts to make the guide noob friendly are just introducing confusion for me who knows... a little bit.

 

[Bu2d85]

It goes AuReiNand > EmuNand. A9LH is just the entrypoint the payload is AuReiNand.

Boot time to EmuNand is about 8 seconds.

I can go AuReiNand > SysNand MenuHax > any CFW (GW, ReiNand, RxTools, etc,), but I pretty much just use it for GW which is almost never now.

EDIT: You can do the entire process with emunand. I don't know why they switched to RedNand but they are basically the same.

 

[jonnytron]

It goes AuReiNand > EmuNand. A9LH is just the entrypoint the payload is AuReiNand.

Boot time to EmuNand is about 8 seconds.

I can go AuReiNand > SysNand MenuHax > any CFW (GW, ReiNand, RxTools, etc,), but I pretty much just use it for GW which is almost never now.

Ahh, so i could have CtrBootManager as an optional extra if i chose to put the boot process through to sysNAND. yeah that's pretty cool.

 

[The Real Jdbye]

Yeah that all sounds good, i guess ill look for a clean TWL_FIRM somewhere.
On 3+4 with your system does the boot process then go A9LH > sysNAND MenuHAX > AuReiNAND > emuNAND
or A9LH > AuReiNAND > emuNAND??? Id personally prefer the latter but mainly just interested.

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------



Thanks a lot, i think that about covers everything.
Ill just have to;
1. Find and install an original TWL_FIRM CIA
2. Figure out RedNAND... dunno why it changed really. My only concerns for returning my emuNAND over it is how emu/RedNAND are stored differently so I worry it wont write over the redNAND properly... I enjoy that the efforts to make the guide noob friendly are just introducing confusion for me who knows... a little bit.

I'm not sure why it was changed, maybe it's because RedNAND takes less space on SD and therefore is theoretically a "superior" format. There are apparently issues with it though, see: https://github.com/Plailect/Guide/issues/36
You should be fine just using EmuNAND wherever the guide says to use RedNAND, like that page says.

 

[Bu2d85]

Ahh, so i could have CtrBootManager as an optional extra if i chose to put the boot process through to sysNAND. yeah that's pretty cool.

Yes, but you would have to keep your sysnand at 9.2. There is also a CtrBootManager for A9LH but it only works for A9LH payloads and there are not a lot of those yet. AuReiNand has something built in that is similar to a boot manager. I recommend giving that thread a read before you install A9LH on your console.

 

[jonnytron]

I'm not sure why it was changed, maybe it's because RedNAND takes less space on SD and therefore is theoretically a "superior" format. There are apparently issues with it though, see: https://github.com/Plailect/Guide/issues/36
You should be fine just using EmuNAND wherever the guide says to use RedNAND, like that page says.

Yeah, i think ill do that. From my memory of last time i did it the guide has only changed all mentions of emuNAND to RedNAND and hasn't really changed any of the steps.
Any tips on where to find a clean TWL_FIRM while were here?

 

[Bu2d85]

Yeah, i think ill do that. From my memory of last time i did it the guide has only changed all mentions of emuNAND to RedNAND and hasn't really changed any of the steps.
Any tips on where to find a clean TWL_FIRM while were here?

I can't give you the link but it's the ISO site where everyone gets their 3DS games.

 

[The Real Jdbye]

Yeah, i think ill do that. From my memory of last time i did it the guide has only changed all mentions of emuNAND to RedNAND and hasn't really changed any of the steps.
Any tips on where to find a clean TWL_FIRM while were here?

The best way to do that would be to find an update pack for the same firmware version/region/3DS model (or download it with 3DNUS) and copy the TWL/AGB_FIRM/DS cart whitelist cias from it. That way you're sure you get the right one for your specific firmware version/region/3DS model.

You can find the title IDs for those titles here: http://3dbrew.org/wiki/Title_list

 

[richardparker]

can anyone pls check my thread out and answer me?
https://gbatemp.net/threads/a9lh-problem-with-fbi-inject-with-app.421132/#post-6214695

 

[Bu2d85]

can anyone pls check my thread out and answer me?
https://gbatemp.net/threads/a9lh-problem-with-fbi-inject-with-app.421132/#post-6214695

Do like the man in the thread said and take a picture of the files on your sd card. There is a print screen button on your keyboard.

Now, no more thread hijacking. Do not reply in this thread.

 

[jonnytron]

The best way to do that would be to find an update pack for the same firmware version/region/3DS model (or download it with 3DNUS) and copy the TWL/AGB_FIRM/DS cart whitelist cias from it. That way you're sure you get the right one for your specific firmware version/region/3DS model.

You can find the title IDs for those titles here: http://3dbrew.org/wiki/Title_list

Right i believe i've found the TWL_FIRM and AGB_FIRM;
0004013820000102.cia and 0004013820000202.cia respectively

having a bit of trouble with finding the DS cart whitelist but im also not entirely sure ill require it.
Shall I just install these with devmenu/FBI then?

 

[Bu2d85]

Yes, you will be fine just installing those.